


Aren't We All?

by orphan_account



Category: House of Wax (2005)
Genre: Bo is canonically an asshole, Canon-Typical Violence, Does Vincent Shower??? God I Hope So, Drama & Romance, F/M, Fraternal Abuse (is that a tag? it should be), Horror, I'm horny on main for Vincent Sinclair and PROUD of it, Nomadic Character, POV Original Character, Psychological Trauma, Shameless Slasher Pandering, Slow Burn, Southern Hospitality, Touch-Starved, Vincent is Soft, Vincent isn't stupid!! Bo is just a dipshit, Wax-Related Shenanigans, You have to be a lil bit Fucked Up to hang out with murderers right?, the whole plotline is just 'people? no. big waxy boy? absolutely', will eventually be smutty I think
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-01-29 14:10:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21411475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: I brushed a little debris away from a larger sculpt in the middle of them display: a vulture woman bore down with vicious fangs upon the neck of a man with the head of an equally ferocious tiger. They both looked afraid of one another. Yet still, they fought to the death.“Vincent, these are…” I paused to look at the starkly pale mask beside me. The single eye within its shadows watched me warily, the arms that held the display platter unmoving. “These are gorgeous.” I touched the extended claws of the tiger man. “Both the prey and the monster. Aren’t we all?”
Relationships: Vincent Sinclair/Original Character(s)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	1. Chapter 1

Despite all the flaunting and TV Talk Show chatting we put out into the universe, humanity as a whole is just as animalistic and feral as the rest of the planet. We don’t like to say it out loud, but it’s true; and it takes so little for the animal to rise to the surface, dominating what little civility we own. It’s always there, waiting underneath. 

I’ve lived the vast majority of my life by that saying. I’d wager it saved my life; it sure as hell shaped me into the creature I am today. Thanks to a series of embittering and violent events of my past I have found myself living alone, surviving,  _ hunting _ , in the depths of the woods for the past few years. It’s a far more honest and far less malicious lifestyle than many can lay claim to. I learned it all from my long-gone grandfather; building what I need, finding what I want, killing when it’s demanded of me.  _ The civilized life is far less enjoyable then the uncivilized one _ , I thought to myself as I pulled a cottontail from one of my snare traps. It was heavy and freshly warm in my hands. Good. I’d need the meat. Winter was starting to descend into the depths of Louisiana, and though the weather stayed survivable in the 30s and 40s, the food that the wilderness provided disappeared for months at a time. 

_ I’ll have to start scavenging again.  _ The thought left a bitter taste in my mouth. There were little towns and hamlets about a day’s walk from my camp. Their dumpsters and unattended backdoors were flush with fresh food and undamaged clothes, but with those boons came an unavoidable issue. Regular people. The most dangerous creatures to walk this earth. People in large packs, all guided by the same set of morals? I’d rather go hungry. But my last set of shoes were riddled with quickly-growing holes, which made walking in the underbrush a distinctly unpleasant experience. Something had to be done about it. 

The next morning I build a low smokey fire underneath the alcove of the nearby riverbank and strung up some meat to dry and smoke for the day while I was out. With a pack full of water bottles and home-cooked pemmican, I was off headed west. I had already visited the little towns to the east and south, and had no desire to go back anytime this year; they were much too crowded for my taste. I vaguely remembered someone telling me about a little town by the river a long time ago… Amber, was it? Amber Rose, maybe?

I followed my well-worn paper map of the county for hours on end, the sun rising over the forest and kissing the horizon as I followed the river westward. By sundown I had reached the outskirts of the little town, its building skyline visible between the trees. I settled down behind an oak and waited for the cover of darkness. As I waited, I watched. I saw nothing move save for a flickering street light and the occasional note of music that made it through the foliage. 

When it was good and dark into the night I made my move. I crept between building alleyways, moving from shadow to shadow, keeping my eyes sharp for anything I could use. I checked a few dumpsters; most of them were empty, or just crusted in long-decomposed garbage.  _ Damn. Must have just been garbage day _ . 

As I crept from alley to alley, a sense of unease settled in my stomach. Voices and noise filtered from the inside of shops and apartment windows, but no moving shadows accompanied them. No cars rumbled down the street, no people ambled arm-in-arm down the straightaway. 

It felt like a ghost town.

After a few more minutes of fruitless searching I found the front door of a gas station was unlocked. There was nobody inside, and not a camera in sight. I bit my lip, weighing the pros and cons of stealing. Then I saw a shelf full of silicon-based caulk and made up my mind. I knocked a few cans into my open backpack; caulk was great for fixing holes in shoes, keeping rain out, and generally holding everything together. I didn’t stick around to see if the cash register worker was going to come back; I took a pack of long-expired gum from the front counter and beat it down the road, walking across is quickly and back into the building shadows. Right after I made my escape behind a cutesy little mom-and-pop shop I heard the sound of a distant engine coming my way. A rickety and dusty pickup truck rumbled up the street of “Ambrose: Featuring the Famous Wax Museum!” (like it said on the sign nearby). I barely glimpsed the driver; a hillbilly bloke. He wasted no time branching off, driving past the said museum up on the hill and out of sight. 

_ So the town’s not a ghost town after all. But it seems pretty safe. I’ll have to remember that _ . I whetted my chapped lower lip, and escaped into the night. 

* * *

It was January, and I needed rope. Twine, a bungee cord, whatever, it didn’t matter. My tent flap kept coming loose and my last piece of nylon cording was frayed into disuse. I set down the cooking stick I had been whittling with a sigh; it was time to go back to Ambrose. Hopefully there would be just as few people as before. I grabbed my pack and headed out, but not before tying up all my foodstuffs in bearsacks and yanking them into the trees above. 

I made it to Ambrose an hour before sunset. It looked… almost completely unchanged. My last experience made me a little bolder; again, it seemed like the town was filled with nothing but half-silent whispers. I crossed the street, making a beeline for a ‘bait and tackle’ shop. Again, the door was unlocked. I stepped in with caution. A figure loomed behind the cash register, and I nearly fell backwards in my panic, the blood in my ears roaring in surprise. When I righted myself, heart pounding, I found myself face to face with a stubbly man. But he was completely unmoving. And his eyes… they were off in some way. I waved my hand in front of his face. He didn’t move. I tentatively poked his chin with one dirty finger; the pad of my digit made contact with smooth wax. I exhaled in relief; I was more glad that I wouldn’t have to work my way around a human being than I was worried that there was a wax figurine in a bait shop. With a quick glance around, I stuffed a coil of rock-climbing rope into my bag. A container of fish-hooks and a jar of pre-prepped bait followed; it would be nice to not have to whittle my own hooks for a little while. 

The bell jingled as I stepped back out. Again, the street was silent. I felt even more bold, and walked down the center of it. What cars lined the center of the road were coated in dust, like they hadn’t been used in ages. A sign loomed off to the side, reading “Come Visit Ambrose’s WORLD-RENOWNED Museum of Wax!”. An arrow pointed to the obvious building at the end of the road. My lip quirked a bit; there was nobody out tonight. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to take a peek. It had been… god, I didn’t even  _ know  _ how long since I'd seen any art, any beauty crafted at the hands of humanity. There were many things about people I couldn’t stand. Art wasn’t one of them. Art was good. Art was pure, honest in a way most things weren’t.

A set of footsteps jarred me. I ducked behind a well-maintained hedge on instinct. They grew louder as they came down the street, accompanied by a man’s voice. 

“Just get your ass over here, Lester. I ain’t got time to waste and you know I don’t like leavin’ him on his own for long.” The man drawled. The footsteps stopped right in front of my hedge. I heard the sound of a match dragged across a pad, then the smell of cigarette smoke. I waited with one hand covering my mouth, legs cramping as the minutes went by. Eventually the sound of a truck- the same engine I heard months ago- rumbled up, stopping in front of the hedge. 

“Hiya there, Bo!” Another man’s voice called out over a staticky radio. 

“Shut yer mouth. Let’s go.” 

The man clambered into the car and it left the same way it came. I only poked my head out once they were well on their way down the street.  _ Okay, there are two of them. Two whole people in a town full of wax _ . I shook my head. Just because I didn’t understand it didn’t mean I had to care; all people were a little batshit in their own way. Clearly these two wore their weird badges on the surface. 

A bird called from the edge of the woods, mournful and alone, as I quietly opened the door to the wax museum. It felt tacky and filmy under my hand, yet the old hinges moved silently. I scratched the textured surface with my nail and examined the curl of material that came away with it. I huffed in impressed disbelief; it was actual wax! I silently felt the ground, then the wall of the entryway. Wax, all of it.  _ High-melt and low give. A weird building material choice, but I appreciate the theme.  _

Stepping into the main hall of the museum was like stepping into another world. I couldn’t help the breath that escaped my chest like it had been forcibly pulled. 

_ Jesus, this place is beautiful _ . 

A still and silent world; the angles and form of our reality captured in a perfect and unchanging moment, protected from the progression of time. A bellhop welcomed me in with glittering eyes and a bright smile. Women tittered on a nearby chaise lounge. A cat stretched languidly next to a shining birdcage, a sweet fluffy canary watching it warily from within. 

I put a hand over my chest, spinning in a slow circle and just  _ looking _ . It was all the beauty of the world without any of the drama, any of the fuss. It felt like looking at the universe’s biggest painting, but in full three dimensionality. 

I slowly ambled the silent and dusty halls, going from room to room. I examined candelabras of wax with delight, picked up immaculately carved wax forks and adorable wax sugar cookies. A good portion of the big pieces, if I picked them up and checked beneath, were marked with an eloquently carved name;  _ Vincent _ , written angular letters.  _ Someone was a brilliant artist _ , I thought idly. 

After what seemed like ages, I found my way back to the main hall, passing the front desk like I did before, my feet padding silently across the floor. I froze, then ever so slowly back up. The front desk was littered with dusty little sculptures; whales, turtles, snakes. But now there was one there that wasn’t there before. It wasn’t dusty; in fact, it smelled like fresh paraffin.  _ Someone put this here while I was in the building _ . I grabbed the sculpture- a hummingbird dipping its beak into a flower- with a cold hand. Someone just as quiet as myself had come in, put this down, and left. Had they seen me? Did they know I was here? I overturned the sculpture. On the bottom in those familiar elegant letters was the same name; Vincent.  _ Someone still  _ _ is _ _ a brilliant artist, it seems _ . I set the sculpture down delicately, not wanting to damage it in any way. I couldn’t believe the artist behind all this absolutely stunning artwork was still around, here, in this town! What beauty he conjured!

I knew it was time to leave. But before I did I searched the desk for a scrap of paper and an old pen, scrawling down a note and tucking it very obviously into the bellhop’s outstretched hand.  _ I’m very fond of your work, Vincent,  _ the note read _ , you are a wonderful artist. My favorite piece is the mer-octopus. Your command of form is breathtaking. Sincerely, a fan.  _ I deliberated a bit by the door, thinking. With a nod I pulled one of my own creations out of the side pouch of my bag; whenever I had an evening free I would carve little baubles out of river driftwood, just to keep myself busy. I put the little wooden star next to the note on the bellhop’s palm, and walked out into the night. The door closed noiselessly behind me. 

* * *

  
  


I couldn’t help myself. I came back two weeks later. 

It was stupid, it was  _ foolish _ to be putting myself in a dangerous situation like this, but I couldn’t resist. I wanted to see all the little wax creations again, the ostracizing people of humanity be damned. Sure, if someone caught me trespassing after-hours they’d probably call local law enforcement. But I prided myself on being a very good runner; and chances are that a small-town cop wouldn’t want to go through the hassle of chasing a woman through the forest at night. It was well worth the risk in my eyes. 

The lights were dimmer this time when I pushed open the doors. Only about half of them were on, casting the frozen world of wax in a dreamlike glow. My footsteps echoed in the massive hall, and I couldn’t help the smile that crept onto my face at the little enchanted world. The first thing that I noticed was that the note I had taken great care to secure in the bellhop’s hand was gone. The second thing I noticed was another new sculpture smack-dab in the middle of the front desk. I hurried towards it, examining it with the level of excitement a child might examine a toy store window at Christmastime with. It was an octopus, but far more fantastical than that! Its skin was polished and smoothed to an aquatic slick sheen, and in each dynamic appendage it clutched a fat little star, much like the chubby wooden one I left with my note. I flushed with embarrassment thinking back on that; that note was  _ gushing  _ with praise. What a sentimental fool I could be when it came to artists! But they were a different breed of human in my eyes; better, in some ways, with their eyes more open to the way the world really worked. I turned the statuette over to check once more for a signature.  _ Thanks.  _ It read. Vincent signed his name with a single letter “ _ V _ ” this time. 

My heart swelled a fraction. He  _ did  _ read my note! When I told him that I loved his octopus mermaid, he carved a brand new octopus! I was under no impression this was an easy or effortless feat. A sculpture  _ this  _ delicate and  _ this  _ complex demanded hours of work, even for someone of Vincent’s clear expertise. The fact that he would make something this beautiful because of my praise… well, it was almost enough to kindle some affinity towards the anonymous artist who was keeping this museum stocked with visual treasures. I searched with great haste for another piece of paper at the desk, this time finding an unused lined notepad.  _ This one is just as pretty as all the rest. I wish I had something just as nice to give back to you, but I don’t own much. Thank you for letting me see your work. I will be back again. Sincerely, a fan.  _ I set the notepad down by the octopus, already pulling out what few trinkets I kept in my pack. My pride and joy was a barbie head I found stuck in the underbrush of the river; I spent some of the colder months weaving her a body out of dried grasses and old t-shirt fabric. She was delicately placed next to the note on the desk. I knew she didn’t look like much, but she meant a lot to me. I hoped she would mean a lot to a fellow artist as well. 

I turned to leave, but on a whim I added one last sentence to the note.  _ P.s. Do you know how to carve sandpipers? _ I loved those little birds. They showed in the everglades near my camp, sometimes; what funny little creatures, darting about on their spindly legs. Unaware of their own ridiculousness and perfectly fine with that.

I shouldered my backpack. I’d spent enough time here, and I'd seen neither hide nor hair of the two men with the pickup truck; I didn’t want to hang out long enough to have them find me. I beat a quick retreat out the waxen doors, unaware of the single eye that watched me from the shadowy top of the broad spiraling stairs. 

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

I kept my promise out of some compulsion that was beyond me. I didn’t want to admit it, but it felt…  _ good _ , in a way, to be keeping in contact with another person. Even if that person was a faceless phantom I’d never seen before. It was January 23rd and the sun was at its weakest, casting a watery and pale tone over Ambrose. 

I rubbed my hands together to get the chill out of them when I shut the door to the wax museum. I had gotten here earlier than usual, today; I needed the daylight hours to walk home in. Nights in the winter were rocky and unforgiving. The hall was just as silent as before, soundless save for the wind blowing through the valley outside. It filled me with a sense of peace, being in a room with so many people yet being unbothered by the noises and voices that usually came with them.  _ Speaking of which. There’s a new figure here _ . I ambled over to a plush ottoman in front of the stairs. On it sat a middle-aged woman in a flapper dress, her smile quirked with a coy grin. She held a paper fan in her hand, peeking over the edge with an expression of mischief. I smiled in return and smoothed down one of her stray curly hairs. 

Once I was content that I hadn’t missed any new installments around the grand hall, I returned to the front desk. Just as I was drawing close, my foot caught on the rough edge of an old and fraying tibetan rug. I overcompensated and began to slip in the opposite direction. On instinct I reached out towards a nearby statue of polished bronze to stabilize myself. 

The bronze, to nobody’s surprise but my own, was wax. 

The finger I had grabbed to steady myself snapped off with a crack, and I plowed shoulder-first into the floor. My head whacked against a nearby dresser with an echoing thump, sending the items on top flying. I laid on the floor, stunned, only barely able to catch a statuette falling from the dresser in time before it broke my nose. I clutched the- tortoise, I think it was?- to my chest, breathing hard, ears ringing. My head was in excruciating pain; I felt like someone had hit me with a mallet.  _ That’s gonna leave a bruise,  _ I thought dizzily,  _ if it hasn’t completely scrambled my brain.  _

I blinked furiously, trying to will away the residual fuzziness in my vision as I started to pull myself to my feet. My backpack, which had been half-crushed under me, emitted a few pitiful noises of the broken contents inside. I pressed the palms of my hands into my eyes, groaning pitifully. That clattering disaster of a fall was probably heard from here all the way to China.  _ I should probably get out of here.  _

All the way across the hall, at the end of the staircase, the one figure next to the ottoman was now two. 

_ That _ got me to my feet. The blood that was leaving my ears came back with a roaring vengeance. That- that was  _ not  _ a wax figurine right there. It was too big. Too disheveled. It was an actual person. 

Light reflected off of its left hand, and even from this distance I knew what that was. 

That was an actual person  _ holding a knife _ . 

I didn’t blame him, of course. Only an idiot would confront a stranger unarmed, especially in a town that’s only supposed to have two people. His expression was blank and bloodless. 

I hazarded a guess as to who that was even as my trusty old fight or flight instincts began to kick into high gear. “You… you uh, wouldn’t happen to be Vincent, would you? The artist?” My voice echoed in the large hall. 

No response, save for a slight cock of the head. 

“...I’ll take that as a no.” I had to resist frowning at my own voice; it sounded so different than I remembered it. Sure, I hummed to myself when I was working, but when was the last time I actually talked? “Listen, I’m sorry for the private property intrusion. I just, uh. I just brought Vincent a little something for our… penpal service, I s’pose you could call it. Can you make sure he gets it?” 

The man shrouded in a heavy layers of black jackets started moving forward with alarming and unexpected speed. His heavy footfalls ricocheted through the empty air and his hair swayed side to side with every step like a curtain of black. 

I felt rooted to the ground, caught between such strong morbid curiosity and such paralytic fear that they seemed to just cancel one another out.  _ To stay or to go, to stay or to go, to stay or to go-  _ my hand was reaching for the skinning knife I kept tucked into my waist belt. 

The man stopped short a few feet from me, the weapon almost concealed under his heavy sleeve. He lifted his free hand, putting the palm up. I saw now, at this frightening proximity, just how  _ big  _ he was. He was huge, with hulking shoulders and broad fingers; yet he stood hunched, nervous. The one eye I could see in the hollow of what was now very  _ obviously  _ a waxen mask regarded me with extreme caution. 

“What do you wa…” I said breathlessly before it clicked. “Oh. Mm. Okay. The thing for Vincent.” I slung my pack over one arm and unzipped the front pocket. I was especially proud of this piece. It was nothing fancy; my skill level wouldn’t let me make something as good as anything Vincent ever made, even if I tried. I pulled out a plain twine cord, full from end to end with simple and rough-hewn bone beads. I had taken the bones of my last kill, a doe, and dried them out until they weren’t so marrow-mushy. The past several nights had been filled with sitting by the fire and whittling away at the porous material, only occasionally nicking my finger. 

I unceremoniously dropped the pseudo-necklace into the strange man’s hand. His whole arm jerked back almost imperceptibly when my index finger brushed his thumb. His fingers closed around it; they were worker’s hands for sure, I noticed. Worn from daily labor, debris caught under the nail, just like mine. 

The stranger’s gaze went from the beads, to my face, back to the beads, as if he was judging the situation. He was rubbing the beads almost tenderly, feeling their texture and weight. Finally, slowly,  _ ever  _ so slowly, he slipped the large knife into a sheath on his pant leg. I let go of a breath I didn’t know I was holding. The man reached into one of his ratty jacket’s big pockets and produced a large jumble of dirty rags. He dropped it into my hands like a trade. 

A little confused and wary, I pulled away the rags layer by layer. “Oh.” I said faintly. 

In the middle of the nest of fabric was a tiny sandpiper the size of a golf ball. The little bird was curled up like it was sleeping, with its head tucked back into its own plumage. It was clearly not completely finished; all the feathered were carved carefully with needle-thin precision, save for a portion of the belly. The pieces fell into place and I ran a thumb across the delicate hard wax. 

“You’re Vincent.” I said quietly, looking up at the stranger in the wax mask. Now that I had a chance to study it, it looked rather like a medical prosthetic. The eyebrows were carefully punched in, hair by hair; odd, considering that it wasn’t a plastic mask meant to last. I shook my head, disregarding that thought. This man was the man that made… well,  _ everything  _ in this hall! A phenomenally talented artist! “You’re Vincent!” I parroted once more, sounding a little more alive this time. “Okay. Wow. It’s, uh, it’s good to meet you. Officially, I mean. If you haven’t guessed, I’m the one that left you that first note, but I’m guessing you probably knew that because you haven’t called the police…” I trailed off. I was rambling. That was new.

Vincent shifted his weight from foot to foot, still looking a bit wary. It would have been an anxious gesture on anybody else, but it still managed to look menacing on his large frame.

“I really like your art.” I said quietly, petting the tiny head of the sandpiper. “You’re phenomenally talented. I can’t  _ imagine  _ how much work you’ve dedicated to all this.” 

That made Vincent turn his head away from me, looking more at the ground than at my face. I struggled to keep a little smile off the corners of my mouth. This hulking wall of a man was  _ bashful _ , of all things, at being complimented. His whole situation struck me as very phantom-of-the-opera-esque. “Did you make  _ everything  _ in here?” I asked, looking around at the amassment of art just in this room. 

Vincent shook his head slowly, hair swaying. 

I nodded. “That makes sense. It seems impossible to make  _ this  _ much artwork just with one person. What’s yours, here?”

There was another pause as Vincent seemed to evaluate me one final time. He looked over his shoulder almost guiltily, like he was shirking responsibility. Finally he gave one bobbing nod and gestured with me heavily-covered arm for me to follow him. 

I got a tour of the entire museum with the star artist as my guide; it was almost too good to be true. Vincent led me from room to room, pointing at details I had missed the first few times, and letting me further inspect items I had previously deemed too delicate to touch. Eventually we came to a little display full of smaller figurines hidden behind a large vase and obscured by cobwebs. Vincent lifted the tray they all sat on up and blew hard to get the dust off. He pulled his head back in frustration; no air blew through the sealed lips of his mask. 

“Here. Let me.” I interjected, stepping shoulder-to-shoulder to him and blowing with all my might. Bits of spiderwebs and years of dust flew off in a great big cloud. Vincent was visibly tense in such close proximity to me, but it was hard to focus on that when there was such an intricate display before me. Unlike the octopus mermaid, which was carved to resemble a vintage story illustration, these little figurines were macabre, almost medieval in their enmeshment of human and animal form. The face of an old man screamed from the body of a large squatting pig. Two children held hands at sat upon the ground, their bodies twisting and bending into languishing crocodiles. 

They were breathtaking. 

I brushed a little debris away from a larger sculpt in the middle: a vulture woman bore down with vicious fangs upon the neck of a man with the head of an equally ferocious tiger. They both looked afraid of one another. 

“Vincent, these are…” I paused to look at the starkly pale mask beside me. The single eye within its shadows watched me warily, the arms that held the display platter unmoving. “These are gorgeous.” I touched the extended claws of the tiger man. “Both the prey  _ and  _ the monster. Aren’t we all?” 

It was so quiet in the showroom, I could hear Vincent’s low breathing beside me. It was not a sound that inspired fear; there was something about how me was looking down at me with that single eye. Like he was clutching tightly to every word of praise I gave him, as if it were feeding his soul. 

The safety latch of a gun quietly unlocked from the doorway behind us. 

Vincent dropped the tray of figurines in shock; it went smashing to the ground with a clatter just as I whipped around, fingers on the handle of my knife. In the entryway stood a man who looked to be in his 30s; good-looking, fit, and casually holding a shotgun. 

I made a snap decision in the heat of the moment and stepped directly in front of Vincent. 

This seemed to take the gunsman back for a brief second, the corner of his mouth threatening to break his sickly-sweet grin. “Now that’s quite the humorous sentiment.” His voice was a honeyed southern drawl that I recognized with a cold zing of comprehension;  _ it’s Bo from the truck _ . “But I ain’t the one in this room that you should be afraid of.” His cold gaze shifted to the man behind me, turning angry and authoritative. “Vincent, what in the blazin hells d’you think you’re doin’? You got wax in your head or somethin’? She should be down in the work room, not gettin’ a personal-goddamn-tour from you!” 

Vincent made a noise of protest, low and in the back of his throat. He put a hand on my shoulder and moved me to the side, shouldering past and jangling the necklace I made in one hand, holding up towards Bo like it was some sort of evidence. 

Bo sneered. “What the hell are you- now wait a damn second.” He lowered the shotgun uneasily, looking between Vincent’s plaintive gesturing and myself. Bo let out a low whistle. “I’ll be damned. This is the dame who’s been leavin’ you gifts? And here I thought you were makin’ all that up.” 

Vincent nodded once more, turning to look back at me. He made himself look so small, so hunched in front of Bo; almost like he was deferring to him, trying not to upset him. 

Bo shook his head, grinning incredulously at the ground, then at me. He readjusted his grip on the shotgun, though it was still aimed near his feet. “Alright. That was very sweet of you, missy,” he said mockingly, “But I’m afraid I can’t let you walk on out and risk you bringing back a whole lotta trouble for me and my brother, here.”

I raised an eyebrow and tried not to betray just how fuckin much I hated that there was a loaded-goddamn-gun in this room; god knows I had enough negative experiences with the damn things to last a lifetime. “You’re brothers? See, there we go, learning something new every day.” My humor didn’t land; Bo just continued to stare me down as Vincent side-eyed me. I swallowed dryly. “Listen, Bo, was it? I don’t want to cause any problems for you, or especially for Vincent. I… well, I think he’s kind of an artistic genius. I wouldn’t want to interrupt that. Besides…” I let my fingers trace the edges of my skinning knife, my muscles still tense and ready to leap into action. “I don’t think the law has quite forgiven me yet for what I’ve done. I won’t be running towards any place with it anytime soon.” 

Bo took a few moments to chew on my words, raking me up and down with his eyes. It was an uncomfortable, predatory sensation. He took in my ratty clothes, my self-cut hair, and my overpatched shoes. I knew in that moment he saw exactly what I saw in him. Dysfunction. Abnormality. A creature that was surviving outside the perimeters of the human social group. 

“You’re a damn fool, Vincent.” He growled after a few moments, and delivered a disciplinary smack to the masked man’s shoulder. He took it, sliding back an inch. “Keep an eye on her until Lester comes back. We’ll know soon enough if she brought any friends lookin’ to make a mess of Mama’s work.” With that, Bo stalked out of the museum, leaving me still nervously gripping my knife hilt and feeling like I’d just been through some serious whiplash. 


	3. Chapter 3

I didn’t get why Vincent would be so quick to listen to the orders of an obvious bully, but he was. When Bo left I was unceremoniously dragged by the wrist through a series of lower and lower winding tunnels, eventually emerging into a giant workshop space that I never would have guessed was hiding under the floor of the museum. 

“I can walk myself-  _ hey. _ ” I yanked my wrist out of Vincent’s iron grip just as we entered the dimly lit cavernous room. “I  _ said  _ that I can….walk…”

_ Holy shit, he really is straight out of the phantom of the opera.  _ The workroom looked like a cave, low-lit stalactites of wax dripping from the ceiling and guttering flames from enormous cauldrons casting wavering shadows on the concrete walls. Vats of wax burbled in a low and constant hum, singing in tandem with the creak and hiss of the pipes that criss-crossed the walls. The many workbenches, tables, and seats in the room were haphazardly covered in half-finished projects, rough scaffolds, and tools of the carving trade. I almost put my hand straight into a dripping lit candle as I leaned against a nearby shelf. 

Vincent hauled the large metal door behind me closed and locked it with a small key. He tucked it back into his jacket pocket with dirty fingers. 

I fanned myself idly; it was blisteringly warm down in the workshop on account of all the open flame. I watched as Vincent circled a nearby table, making to go about his workspace but still keeping his untrusting gaze on me. 

I took the hint. “I’m sorry if I got you in trouble.” I hazarded, taking a tentative seat in one of the work chairs nearby. It was slick with a thin coat of cool wax. “I didn’t mean to. It’s just… it’s been a long time since I’ve been in a place like this. A museum with actual art, I mean.” I ran a hand through my hair, trying to focus more on the situation at hand than the fact that I was being forcibly kept down in this room instead of running free in the forests like I normally was. I had to stave off that feeling of entrapment with something, anything. “It’s, uh. It’s been a while since I’ve been around. Well. Anybody, I guess.”

Vincent cocked his head at this, hands stilling over a set of large metal tools on the table. 

“I live on my own.” I clarified. “Out in the everglades, east of here.” I laughed. “It gets lonely, being in a great big place like that all by myself.”

Vincent nodded slowly, seeming to understand exactly where I was coming from. After another few moments of awkward silence- me picking at my fingernails and him lining up his set of carving tools- he mosied over to a wax dripping-covered radio and flipped the dial. Echoey and faint notes of classical music filled the air. This seemed to… calm him, in a way. His posture straightened and he walked not like he was trying to disappear in the shadows, but like he  _ owned  _ the place.  _ Makes sense; this is his workshop, his turf _ , I thought to myself. I watched with idle curiosity as he rounded an alcove corner. There was a great deal of scraping and the whining of hinges; he emerged pushing a life-sized work-in-progress wax sculpture of a man mounted on a four-wheeled dolly. Vincent rolled it up to the side of the table like it was weightless, and set to work. 

It was like as soon as he brought the sculpture out, his world narrowed down to that and that alone. He shrugged off his enormous jacket to reveal a comfortable cable-knit sweater and work apron underneath, throwing his overcoat over a chair. The thick wool material of the sweater did little to hide how absolutely massive he was as an individual, all broad shoulders and powerful muscles.  _ He has to be _ , I mused,  _ if he’s hauling around hundreds of pounds of wax like that every day _ . 

I rested my chin on my hand and watched him get to work, not bothering to mask my transparent appreciation for his passion for work- and impressive physique. He got to it straight away. Out came a sort of wire instrument, used for scraping broad curls of material away from long edges of the body like arms, legs, and the curve of the torso. The piece was clearly still in its shaping phase; it was remarkable to see his hands move over the broad canvas of wax with practiced ease, magically conjuring subtle lines of muscle and ropes of ligament where there had once been uneven paraffin.

I sat there, idly swinging my leg and watching him work, for a good thirty minutes before my squirreliness got the better of me and I was sent rummaging through my backpack. Vincent only threw one short glance over his shoulder to check what I was doing. I didn’t really blame him; the man looked like he could bench-press me with his pinkie. Me brandishing a knife against him wasn’t going to do much good. I found what I was looking for, eventually: a half-finished head of a coyote made of marbled wood. It was by no means a good-looking carving. You had to squint to see that it was an animal at all, and not some amorphous blob of wood. But I held it anyway, leaning against the table and using the tip of my skinning knife to dig a little deeper into the sockets of its weird-shaped eyes. I alternated between working on the head and watching Vincent magic his way around the rapidly-forming human of wax. 

A few minutes in, my blade slipped and sliced me sharply across the pad of my thumb. I swore quietly and hissed, shaking my thumb and sticking it in my mouth. 

Vincent turned sharply towards me, a lighter in one hand and a hooked tool in another, bits of wax clinging to his apron. 

I waved my hand apologetically. “‘M fine.” I said around my thumb. “Nicked my finger trying to be a woodcarver.” 

With a muffled exhale, Vincent leaned across the table and picked up the coyote head before I could stop him. I made a muffled noise of protest as he held the golfball-sized sculpt up to the lamp light; the thought of this wildly talented artist having to look at my disaster of a project filled me embarrassment I hadn’t felt in years. Mortified heat filled my veins as he slowly turned it, inspecting it. 

I stood up, my chair screeching. “Give it  _ back _ ,” I said aggressively, and pried it out of his hand with quick fingers. I immediately felt embarrassed at my childish reaction, and how taken about the tall man looked. “Sorry, I...sorry.” I muttered, squirreling away the head into my back pocket. “It’s just like… like swimming with arm floaties next to an Olympic swimmer.” I gestured helplessly to his armada of life-like sculptures around the workspace. “I’ll just watch you work instead.”

He raised both hands in a ‘fine, whatever’ gesture, readjusting his waxy mask before returning to his work. 

I felt a small level of remorse for snapping at the man who saved me from getting my head blown off less than an hour ago. His blank evaluation of my work, no matter how casual it was… brought up unhappy memories from my childhood. I shook off the faded images from my past with a roll of my shoulders, and instead opted to scooch my chair a little closer to Vincent to get a better angle on his work. Vincent didn’t even seem to notice. He had moved from the carving phase on the upper body to the refinement phase, which involved alternating between a coarse sponge and a pallet knife that he kept heated with a lighter. I watched his arm flex and ripple as he moved the sponge in small, concise circles across the planes of the shoulderblades, smoothing the uneven surface and sending speckles of wax onto the floor below. 

“Do you use that tiny sponge on the whole body?” I asked quietly after another few minutes of observation. “It seems too small for how big that statue is.” 

The sponge Vincent was using was set down on the table as he side-eyed me. From one of his utility pants pockets he pulled a larger sponge about the size of his hand with a rubber band on one side. He slipped it onto his hand like a glove and wiggled his fingers, showing me how it fit. 

I gave a hum of understanding. “That makes more sense. Did you make that tool for yourself?” 

Another slow nod.

“Ingenuitive.” I remarked. 

Vincent shrugged and straightened his apron before flicking on a flip lighter with a little more flair than he had before. The corner of my mouth quirked; now he clearly knew I was watching. Vincent held the small flame close to the middle of the figurine’s back. The wax grew softer and softer in the orange light, shinier and shinier. It began to slip, nearly about to trickle.  _ Was he ruining his sculpture on purpose?  _ I was seconds away from asking him to stop damaging his beautiful artwork when Vincent made a single fluid uppercut motion with a flat palette knife. A sharp and artful outline of a vertebra materialized in the dip of the back; he hadn’t been destroying it, he was just so dexterous and experienced with this medium that he knew how to take shortcuts. 

I let out a surprised huff of air and a broad grin accompanied it. That wasn’t a studious move; it was a parlor trick meant to entertain. Vincent wanted to impress me. Clearly he had succeeded. Vincent took a step back from the sculpture, snapping the lighter shut and cocking his head as if appraising it. 

I hopped off the seat. “Do you mind if I take a look?” I asked, gesturing to the statue. Vincent gestured with an open palm as if to say ‘ _ be my guest _ ’. I walked in slow circles around it, taking in the form. How could something as slippery and temperamental as wax be coerced into such fluid shape? It was spellbinding. Vincent watched intently as I touched the rough cheek of the man, letting my hand drift down the neck, shoulder, and onto the waist. I frowned a little bit at the change in texture. 

“You haven't smoothed the outer torso yet, have you?” I asked, letting my fingers bump over the uneven surface. Vincent shook his head and tucked a lock of hair over his shoulder before looking down at the sponge-glove in his grip. After a moment of contemplation, he handed it towards me with pinched fingers. 

“...You want me to do it?” I asked. 

Vincent gestured once more. I took the sponge, sliding the rubber band over the back of my hand. It was still warm from use. Vincent pointed with an open hand towards the broad curve of the side of the statue; a vast expanse of unrefined canvas that didn’t take too much skill to work with. Still, touching it made me nervous. This felt oddly intimate. Personal of him to share this with me.

With a falsely confident flash of a smile I gripped the hip of the sculpture in my free hand and set the rough sponge down on the other side, starting to move it in slow and small circles like I had seen Vincent do before. My touch was feather light; it was silly, but I was scared to put any pressure on the hard wax. I was terrified that the hours of labor before me would shatter into little pieces like glass under my hand. 

There was a stifled exhale behind me, and before I knew it, I wasn’t alone next to the statuette. Without warning Vincent’s wide, strong hand was laying over the top of mine and  _ pressing _ , pressing harder against the wax than I would have ever thought to press.  _ Who knew wax sculpting took so much strength,  _ I thought dizzily. Vincent was in shockingly close proximity to me; I felt more and more aware of it with each broad stroke he guided me through, hand over hand, arm over arm. I could feel his chest bump up against my back as he leaned over my shoulder.  _ His hand is very warm _ . 

It had been a  _ very  _ long time since I had been physically close to any human being. Years. This was… uncomfortably distracting. 

Vincent didn’t seem to notice. He was too lost in his passion for the art, his vigor for teaching me the right way to buff the wax; he was a man transformed and in his element. 

I let out a single shaky breath and gripped the hip of the sculpture tighter, trying not to scratch it with my nails but needing some stabilization as Vincent moved my arm. Slowly but surely, as the seconds ticked by, the wax grew smoother, more polished. 

I realized I could feel Vincent’s warm breath through the nasal gaps of his mask only a few inches away from my head. My arm began to move with his, feeding my own strength into the work and doubling down on the effort to buff the surface. “I get it.” I said with a flushed grin, “Don’t let it push me around.”

That seemed to break the silent spell, and Vincent let go of my hand, stepping away. I immediately missed the warmth that came from his proximity, the intent passion that radiated from him when he worked. I paused my rubbing and turned to look at him as he shrank backwards, seemingly taken aback. 

“I don’t get any more help?” I asked softly, disarmingly.

Vincent said nothing. He didn’t move the curtain of hair that fell over the left side of his face this time. His stop-and-go interactions made sense; this was his safe space, his private workshop. I was the intruder in this scenario. 

With a long-suffering sigh I pointedly turned back around and very obviously began to buff away at the wax with improper form; my swipes were uneven and stuttery, the pressure completely off. I winced a little at my own idiocy. Was I really pulling a ‘ _ pay attention to me’ _ move? Was I  _ that  _ hungry for someone to just be beside me? 

The hand came back, and with it, so did Vincent. Apparently he was just as hungry. 

I pressed my back into his chest almost imperceptibly, just to feel a point of contact. He was sturdy under all that clothing. He smelled like sweat, dust, and burned paraffin. 

“My father was a sculptor.” I saw quietly after a few minutes as our hands brushed over the sculpt’s hip bone. Vincent was silent, thankfully. I didn’t know why I was telling him this, but I was. “He worked with wood. Always in the garage, working. He told me I had a talent for art ever since I was little but… I never got as good as he did. It was hard to live up to that expectation.” 

Vincent sucked in a slow breath like he was going to say something.  _ Was he? Could he even talk?  _ I hadn’t heard him utter a single word since I’d first seen him. 

The big metal door to the studio creaked open with the sound of jangling keys. I froze, trapped between a big wax person and an even bigger live one. 

“Well, big brother, you’ve gotten yourself into one hell of a pickle, haven’t you?” The man in the doorway said, leaning against the iron edge. I scowled; great, another face I knew. This was that truck driver. Lester, I presumed, if what Bo had said before was anything to go by. And to top it all off, it’s  _ another  _ one of Vincent’s brothers. A blood bond. 

The day just kept getting worse. 


End file.
